,The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is increasingly dependent upon data. Most of its employees generate and use vast amounts of data on a daily basis. To improve our capacity for data analysis while providing the most efficient and the highest quality health care to our Veteran patients, VHA, working with the VA Office of Information and Technology, implemented a health data warehouse. Central to this plan is consolidating data from disparate sources into a coherent single logical data model. The Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW) is the physical implementation of this logical data model at the enterprise level for VHA. Although the CDW initially began to store data as early as 2006, a renewed effort began in 2010 to accelerate CDW's content by including more subject areas from Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) and content from other existing national data systems. CDW supports fully developed subject areas in its production environment as well as supporting rapid prototyping by extracting data directly from source systems with very minor data transformations. The Regional Data Warehouses and the Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) Data Warehouses share content from CDW and allow for greater reporting flexibility at the local level throughout the VHA organization.,

,The Non-VA Care Medical and Pharmacy System (FEE) automates the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Fee for Service program. It authorizes and pays private physicians, hospitals, and pharmacists for products and services provided to Veterans approved for the program. Veterans are reimbursed through VistA Fee for medically-related expenses including travel. Information is entered into the VistA Fee system through Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) online menus. VistA Fee is run at the Austin Information Technology Center and interfaces with the Financial Management System (FMS), the Beneficiary Identification and Records Locator System (BIRLS), and the VHA Work Measurement database (VWM), to produce payments, accounting updates, and reports. VistA Fee facilitates money management, master record updating, and input error resolution. Daily reports indicating all payments processed and erroneous input transactions are transmitted to approximately 170 Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VAMCs). Letters are sent to Veterans on a monthly basis detailing payments made on their behalf to Non-VA Care Service providers. Monthly, quarterly, semi-annual and annual reports are sent to the Veterans Affairs Central Office (VACO) and VAMCs. The Non-VA Care Fee Basis Medical System is commonly referred to as Central FEE.,

On a monthly basis the Department of Veteran's Affairs transmits a file of all Veterans and Veterans spouses receiving a VA pension and/or compensation benefit payment. The interface calculates the VA chargeable income for SSI purposes and posts this amount to the SSR. VA income discrepancies create diaries for field office development. The purpose of this interface is to eliminate SSI overpayments caused by inaccurate recipient reporting of VA compensation (type C unearned income) or VA pension (type E unearned income) by obtaining the correct amounts from VA and posting the income to the SSR. It also enables SSA to efficiently implement a Medicare outreach program, identify income limits for certain individuals, and determine an individuals potential eligibility for Medicare Savings Programs (MSP) and identify these individuals to the States. OEEAS is responsible for the front-end Pre-Edit program that filters the incoming VA file and generates a report containing erroneous values. OASSIS is responsible for the VA/SSR interface and calculation.

,The Performance and Operational Web-Enabled Reports (POWER) system is a state-of-the-art data warehouse containing data on Veterans Health Administration (VHA) performance metrics that are obtained daily from the individual Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) systems.The POWER system was developed to measure the key performance indicators across VHA facilities and is helping to improve VHA's Medical Care Collections Fund (MCCF) revenue operational performance by providing accurate, reliable, and up-to-date performance measure information. POWER leverages a data warehouse to maintain data used in VHA performance measure calculations. The site provides Web-based analytical reporting capabilities, allowing users to view data by dimensions, such as, National, Consolidated Patient Account Center (CPAC), Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN), or Station locations and by month. The data can also be displayed in tables, graphs and spreadsheets. It should be noted that POWER is not an accounting system; rather, it is a strategic and operational performance reporting system.The POWER system supports VHA's efforts to improve its revenue business operations by providing accurate and reliable performance information on the following metrics: Collections, Gross Days Revenue Outstanding (GDRO), Percentage of Accounts Receivable (AR) Greater than 90 Days, Days to Bill, Total Billings, Percentage of Collections to Billings, and Cost to Collect. POWER is VHA's revenue performance metric dashboard monitoring system that tracks MCCF performance by National, CPAC, VISN and Station.,

,The Veterans Equitable Resource Allocation (VERA) database, is operated by the Allocation Resource Center (ARC) in Braintree, MA. The ARC is part of the Resource Allocation & Execution Office of the Office of Finance. The database is developed from the Patient Treatment File, National Patient Care Database, Fee Basis Medical and Pharmacy System, Decision Support System (DSS) National extracts, DSS Derived Monthly Program Cost Report (MPCR), Resident Assessment Instrument (RAI) Minimum Data Set (MDS), Clinical Case Registry (CCR), and Home Dialysis Data Collection System, the Pharmacy Benefits Management database and the Consolidated Enrollment File. Most of the clinical data is Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture data which is transmitted to the Austin Information Technology Center (AITC) where it is retrieved by the ARC each month. The ARC also retrieves DSS cost data from the AITC as well. Some additional information is received from the Hines Pharmacy Benefits Management and the CCR databases. The data from these sources is combined to develop patient-specific care and cost data for each hospitalization or visit at the location or treatment level. Aggregate tables summarize this data for reporting and analysis purposes. The VERA databases are the basis for resource allocation in the Veterans Health Administration.,

,Voluntary Service System (VSS) is a national-level application which replaced the site-based Voluntary Timekeeping System (VTK). VTK was used for many years at the Veterans Affairs Medical Centers to track and manage the hours of service contributed by volunteers and volunteer organizations. Consistency of data between sites was a problem and the process of compiling national VTK reports was slow and costly. Many steps were involved because national data was only consolidated once a month and it was usually out of sync. Improved data collection and reporting is now available since users interact directly with a centralized national database. Rehosted VSS uses .NET technology that replaced data transmissions between sites and the Austin Information Technology Center to produce the consolidated national reports. Direct access to data provides instantaneous updates and up-to-the-minute reporting for all users. Central Office administrators and Voluntary staff now have broader more reliable data for managing Volunteer Services.,

,The VHA Data Sharing Agreement Repository serves as a centralized location to collect and report on agreements that share VHA data with entities outside of VA. It provides senior management an overall view of existing data sharing agreements; fosters productive sharing of health information with VHA's external partners; and streamlines data acquisition to improve data management responsibilities overall. Agreements that VHA has established with entities within the VA are not candidates for this Repository.,

,Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs (CHAMPVA) is a health care benefit program designed for the dependents of certain Veterans. Administered by the Health Administration Center (HAC), Denver, Colorado, CHAMPVA shares the cost of necessary health care services and supplies with eligible beneficiaries. The CHAMPVA Eligibility & Payment Functions (CVA) database is used by HAC for the administration of the CHAMPVA program.,

,The Residency Allocation Database is used to determine allocation of funds for residency programs offered by Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VAMCs). Information for the database comes from any VAMC that has made a funding request for its residency programs. The Office of Academic Affiliations distributes worksheets and memos are sent to participating VAMCs. VAMC personnel enter the information electronically into the database housed at the Academic Information Management Center (AIMC) located in St. Louis, Missouri. The data entry and collection process is done annually beginning in September and ending in December. The main user of this database is the Office of Academic Affiliations.,

The purpose of this agreement is for SSA to verify SSNs and other identifying information for the Department of Veterans Affairs, VHA. DVA will use the information SSA provides to ensure the accuracy of its recordkeeping systems.